Well, they finally did it. By a vote of 219 to 212, the House of Representatives approved Obamacare Sunday night. By the time you read this, President Obama will have signed this monstrosity into law.<\/p>\n
The only thing \u201cbipartisan\u201d about the measure was the opposition to it. Thirty-four Democrats joined every Republican in the House in voting against it. But even this doesn\u2019t capture the nationwide opposition to the bill. Every single survey taken in the past two months showed massive public opposition to the measure.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what?\u201d was the Democrats rejoinder. \u201cOnce this sucker becomes law, people will learn to like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Left thinks they have won the most important victory yet in the political wars. But they\u2019re about to discover that, like John Paul Jones before us, we have just begun to fight.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope that this November plenty of voters will remember what our leaders just did to us.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll spare you a litany of all the \u201cdirty deals, open threats, broken promises and disregard for democracy\u201d that were used to shove this 2,400-page monstrosity down our throats. Even with all the last-minute vote-buying and arm-twisting, I hoped the measure would come up short. And it almost did.<\/p>\n
In the week before the vote, Barack Obama held private meetings or telephone conversations with 64 different congressmen. At least one of them, Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), bragged publicly that he used his face time with the president to demand some \u201cspecial consideration\u201d for his Central Valley district. On March 16, the Interior Department came through, announcing that the water allocation there would be increased from 5 percent to 25 percent. On Saturday, Costa\u2014a former no vote\u2014said he had flipped to yes. But deal-doing had nothing to do with it, of course.<\/p>\n
The president also hopped aboard Air Force One and flew to rallies in states where wavering House Democrats resided. He showed up in Pennsylvania (home to five uncommitted votes), Missouri (three wavering Democrats), Ohio (eight undeclared congressmen) and Virginia (four).<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s advance men made sure Obama would be talking to friendly crowds. And of course the local media was out in droves. So the Left could be assured of plenty of favorable coverage.<\/p>\n
One person who would be missing from the show was the local congressman. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn\u2019t about to allow members of the House to go home until a vote was taken. No Spring Break for those guys and gals! The speaker knew she didn\u2019t dare risk letting representatives go home then. Otherwise, too many would see first-hand just how opposed most of their constituents were to the measure.<\/p>\n
While the president used the honey of his rhetoric and the promise of government largesse to win votes, political heavies such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Moveon.org used threats. Their message was short and simple: Vote no on Obamacare and we\u2019ll find someone else to take your place in Congress.<\/p>\n
But all of the bullying, bluffs and bluster wasn\u2019t enough. Kimberley Strassel, who writes the Potomac Watch column for the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, had been following this story for months. The day after that fateful vote, she reported, \u201cBy the weekend, all the pressure and threats and bribes had left the speaker three to five votes short.\u201d<\/p>\n As it happened, there were half-a-dozen votes just waiting to be plucked. All the House leadership had to do to get them was agree to include a line in the legislation saying that no Federal funds would be used to provide abortions. The danger was that if they agreed they\u2019d lose more than six votes among the pro-abortion crowd in the House.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know who came up with the compromise, but it was a dandy. The language of the legislation wouldn\u2019t be changed\u2014but the president promised to issue an executive order afterwards, stating that no Federal funds provided by the bill could be used for abortions.<\/p>\n That was all it took for Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to fold like an accordion. On Sunday afternoon he announced that he and five other colleagues would now support the legislation.<\/p>\n Pro-abortion supporters chortled that such an executive order wouldn\u2019t change a thing. Bart and his buddies had been duped. One pro-life congressman was so upset that he shouted out \u201cbaby killer!\u201d during the debate on the House floor.<\/p>\n But, no matter. The dirty deed was done. And within hours, the most radical healthcare legislation in history had been approved by the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n